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Software for the Grass Roots 96

Posted by michael from the turnkey-solution dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In February at the O'Reilly Digital Democracy Teach-In, technologists from the Dean, Kucinich, Clark and Kerry campaigns laid down arms to share tech plans while their respective camps were still battling it out in the primaries. A (private) list and requirements for fall campaign organizing ensued. Just six weeks ago, a few of the developers converged in San Francisco for a show and tell of their emerging free software tools. Today, the AdvoKit project was the first to tag beta, hoping to kick-start the campaign software revolution in time for November 2nd."
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Software for the Grass Roots More

Software for the Grass Roots

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  • Grass roots, eh? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by larley ( 736136 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @03:10AM (#9972791)
    Hmmm... I had to convince a friend that free software is a plausible notion, as he simply argued that "If people aren't paying for it, what incentive is there?" But then again, if you're working on free software, then you have some sort of desire... While if you're working underpaid in a cubicle, you wind up having a lot less drive than someone doing it purely for pleasure. I respect those who work on free software immensely...

    • Re:Grass roots, eh? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yes, but none of these pople working for free seem to want to write a driver for my sound card. Another text editor though....
    • I can't figure out why the Establishment Democratic Party folks cited are considered the 'grass roots.'

      They have all the trade union bosses and most of Hollywood supporting them, for goodness sakes.

      • Trade unions represent lots of unprivileged people. Hollywood people are tightly connected to the total cross-section of Americans who buy their entertainment. These people, successful in working in industry organizations, understand that organizations are effective in politics.

        People in America who identify primarily as "the people", rather than "the corporation" favor the Democratic Party over the Republican Party. Grassroots organization is more popular among people than among corporations. Democrat org

  • We need less technology in politics... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by John Seminal ( 698722 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @03:30AM (#9972827) Journal
    "Our big concern was what's missing, what technological piece is missing to organize an effective campaign. Resoundingly, peop le across the country told us there was a special need for software to enable neighbor-to-neighbor activity--and that, ideally, it should be freely distributed, easy to use, and free."

    I disagree with this. I think we don't need more between the voter and the politicians, we need less. What I want to see is the politicians go door to door, meet people, talk to them. The more politics becomes some equation with all the consultants and marketing experts, the less voting will mean. Politicians will secure their base, do research to find out how to make the middle swing their way, and then give speeches to satisfy those people. More technology will just reinforce this new paradigm. And once this happens, the real power will be with lobbyists, the ones who can fund a candidate to have the best consultants and marketing.

    I would love to see a genuinely inspired person run a campagin going door to door, speaking passionatly about what they believe in (and not something scripted by consultants). I would like to see this guy/gal reject lobbyists and do it the old fashioned, grass roots way. Can it be done today, and still win? I think so. But to the uninspired who want the title/power/prestige of public office (and not the public service), they will take the easy way and do a media blitz.

    I will finish with one last question. Should it really cost 10 million dollars to run a "sucessful" senate campaign? Should it cost 200 million dollars to run for president? And how does that limit who can run? Only the wealthy? Only the well connected? What about Joe Sixpack who has some good ideas about making life better for the avarage american? Can he possibly run and compete?

    • Re:We need less technology in politics... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mec ( 14700 ) <mec@shout.net> on Sunday August 15, 2004 @03:54AM (#9972889) Journal
      You can't change what other people (the candidates) do. But you can change what you do.

      Say you're interested in the race for congress. Find the campaign headquarters for the challenger. Call them up and ask where the challenger is going to be making public appearances in the near future. Look for the event you want -- a coffee klatsch, or a small club meeting, or a debate.

      Do the same for the incumbent. And do the same for any minor parties that you find interesting.

      If one of the candidates isn't going to any public events that satisfy you, write them a letter and say "I saw [your opponent] at [public event] on [date] but I haven't been able to see you anywhere. I like to get to know my candidates, so I'll be voting for [candidate who showed up and talked and answered questions] this year."

      Also, get out your checkbook. Give a couple of bucks to the candidate who shows up and you even halfway agree with. I'm not talking $1000, I'm talking $10.

    • Re:We need less technology in politics... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by JanneM ( 7445 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @04:05AM (#9972913) Homepage
      What I want to see is the politicians go door to door, meet people, talk to them.

      Let's see, an american election period seems to be roughly six months - say 180 days, which comes out to 15552000 seconds (assuming the candidate spends zero time on non-candidacy stuff like sleeping). As a ballpark estimate, there are 75 million potential voters in that country.

      So, 75000000/1552000 is around 0.2 seconds per voter. If political campains are to be face-to-face, that does not leave a whole lot of time to inform each voter on the candidate's position.

      Say we economize, and run town meetings. On average, I would guess you can cover 100 people by one meeting. That would give you 20 seconds or so per meeting. Note that we do not subtract anything for eating, sleeping or travelling.

      I would hazard a guess and say that technological means of reaching out are pretty much necessary.
      • you forget group interaction; namely, rallys and such. Events such as these can spark discussion and help develop consensue that does not require one on one intreaction with every voter.

        The parent of your post was speaking to the human aspect of democracy being marginalized via technology. In that, I very strongly agree.

        If our decisions are actually going to mean something, we need to spend a little time discussing them in a very real way.

      • Re:We need less technology in politics... (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        So, 75000000/1552000 is around 0.2 seconds per voter. If political campains are to be face-to-face, that does not leave a whole lot of time to inform each voter on the candidate's position.

        I believe John F. Kennedy was listed in the Guinness Book of records as achieving up to 300 words a minute in his political speeches. That figures out as one word per 0.2 seconds. Since you only need to convince 50.1 % of the voters to vote for you, the candidate actually has approximately 0.4 seconds per voter, and t

    • "I would love to see a genuinely inspired person run a campagin going door to door, speaking passionatly about what they believe in (and not something scripted by consultants). I would like to see this guy/gal reject lobbyists and do it the old fashioned, grass roots way."

      The state representative for my district does this. When he first ran he stood outside our house and talked for a good hour or so - not imposing himself but because we talked back. He answered questions truthfully, even when it was obviou
    • I think we don't need more between the voter and the politicians, we need less.

      ya..the developer/s of 'MoveOn' on the emerging free software tools [blueoxen.net] page probably agree with you...the link goes to ... er ... some emerging free software?

    • Re:We need less technology in politics... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by identity0 ( 77976 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @06:25AM (#9973131) Journal
      I'm sorry, how did you come to believe the technology was a barrier? Do you not realize that the internet is doing just what you suggest - bringing candidates closer to the people, removing the barriers between them and the citizens? How is Dean getting PayPal donations directly from the people at large worse than GWB or Kerry holding $2000 per head dinners? Just because the gathering of the elites is done in person and PayPal is done through the internet, PayPal is more of a barrier to the candidates? Dean was the closest thing to a winnable candidate who speaks from the heart that you had, and the old guard deestroyed him because of a media blunder - you want to perpetuate this by taking away the tools he used to get so close to the candidacy?

      The internet and other aspects of the computer revolution are probobly the closest thing to a democratizing influence to the system ever since the mainstream media became conglomeritized. A candidate like Dean would never have gotten as far as he was able to without the direct support of thousands of people pitching in through the internet. Through the internet, Dean (or Nader, or Buchanan, etc) can reach just as many people as Bush or Kerry. And with free software, that's one less hurdle to jump as a minor candidate.

      The internet *is* the grass roots. With it, a candidate can reach the public directly, without going through five layers of advisors and reporters and media.

      There are 250 million people in the U.S.(not all of them voters). There are two ways of getting your message out to 250 million people - a massive party's political machine and media campaign, or technology, especially the internet.

      It would be impossible to run a presidential campaign as you suggest without leaving out about 249 million people. How many people, pray tell, is your dream candidate going to meet door-to-door? Do you think a candidate physically meets even one million people during campaign? So in your search for a more "accesible" candidate, you end up leaving out the vast majority of the population - but hey, as long as it looks populist, right?

      Ironically, it's this childish wish for a candidate "among the people" that the media and campaign managers cater to. Look at every door-to-door meeting, "townhall discussion", and public speech given by the major candidates today - they're all fake staged newsbites, from the fake "Made in America" or "Mission accomplished" signs, the screened and vettted audience, canned jokes and focus group-tested phrases. All of it an attempt to look like they're in touch with "the common man". Your fear of technology is what's keeping these media blitzes going. I'd take a million screams from Dean before I listen to a mangled "speech" by GWB.

      As for your last paragraph - with a population of 250 million, that's less than $1 per person. Would you trust a candidate that couldn't raise at least a few million from the people who would be voting for him? He(She)'s going to have to get about 40 million votes, after all.

      And Joe Sixpack was never meant to be President of the United States. The Founders wanted the citizens to choose the wisest and most statesmanlike among them to be their leader, not settle for "the average Joe". Hell, there's even talk from the Republicans about Edwards not being "experienced", and he's a lawyer with 8 years in the Senate.

    • Re:We need less technology in politics... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I disagree with this. I think we don't need more between the voter and the politicians, we need less. What I want to see is the politicians go door to door, meet people, talk to them.

      It's not about talking. It's about communication. If a candidate can use technology to communicate with more people, that's a good thing. The open-source community has had a lot of experience in communicating in large numbers over the Internet; perhaps that can be put to good use by politicians.

    • Advokit and other packages are designed just for this. Advokit is basically a voter database. You load all of the voters into the database. The campaign folks can they say "print out a list of all voters on my block." You then go door to door, then later record your results back into the database (person A is a supporter, person be wants to volunteer, person see wants some more info etc..). It also helps people phonebank. A volunteer at his house can pull up a list of people to call, then record how t
    • We need more effective use of technology in politics. Currently, most campaigns don't get it and are using cobbled together systems that break under load. Some background: I was Governor Dean's Legislative District Co-Ordinator in a suburban/rural part of Washington State, and responsible for contacting over 86,000 voters in under 10 months. At no point was Gov. Dean planning on visiting my area - Seattle gets all the politicians, but we're on our own out on the Eastside. My technology challenges were two
    • It's worth noting that Kerry is getting excellent coverage in local media (and being ignored by the conservative-controlled national media) in the swing states by doing the local door-to-door thing, to the extent that any federal candidate can do it. The results are truly astounding: 50,000 people came to see him in Portland, his latest stop. That's a truly amazing local turnout by any standard. Bush can't even do that in Texas. Bush, meanwhile, continues to do invitation-only "rallies" where pledging your
    • I would love to see a genuinely inspired person run a campagin going door to door, speaking passionatly about what they believe in (and not something scripted by consultants).

      I want a sell-out in politics. I don't want an inspired representative. Bush already is (in his own mind, anyway).
      I want a rep who will represent me and my beliefs, regardless of his own, thus the term representative. So, give me the guy that won't stick to his beliefs, the guy that will follow the opinions of his electorate and a
      • I want a boring politician who believes only that their job is to represent their constituency to other politicians, according to the rules in law. Everyone else belongs in a political action group, a nuthouse, or both.

        I'd like to see politicians get paid the median income of their constituency, up front for their elected term, then 66% of the ongoing median as pension for the rest of their lives. With no other income allowed, combined with audited financial filings every year until they die. That way, the
        • Sounds good but, I'll only disagree on the income.
          They need some motivation to take the job in the first place. I'll say pay them 5x's the median income. That should be enough to attract good people in the first place.

          Of course, if it would really prevent coruption, I'd vote to give them all a $million/year for the rest of their lives. But, I doubt it would prevent the funny money from coming in.
          • I think the strongest "normalizer" in the scheme is the income. These terms are 4-6 years. Getting the median income up front for those years offers a great opportunity for investment, which they can afford to mostly lose because of the guaranteed pension after only 4-6 years. That pension itself can be borrowed against, for more investment opportunities. So the people attracted will be those who can use the investment opportunity, which is to say sensible managers. Keying the political leader's income to t

    • Resoundingly, people across the country told us there was a special need for software to enable neighbor-to-neighbor activity--and that, ideally, it should be freely distributed, easy to use, and free.

      Hmmm.... let's see, free software that enables neighbour-to-neighbour activity [grokster.com]..... free software that enables neighbour-to-neighbour activity [therecordindustry.com]....now where on earth might I find [google.com] such incredibly useful software [shareaza.com]....?
      Can I take it from this that the said politicians will be listening to their electorate an

    • I hope everyone reading this thread gets up out of their chair... says "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" and walks down to a local campaign office to volunteer (Now, go! You don't need to read this...).
      Because once you've done that, you'll know how silly it is to think one person might win a statewide office by "run(ing) a campaign going door to door". I've known many people who -have- run county and state campaigns by doing that but it -is not enough-. All serious candidates (below fed
    • Technology lets organizers spend less time on structural and organizational issues, and more time getting people to talk with each other about the issues. It's the classic optimization of digital control of analog systems, which provides the best combination of both direction and fidelity in the communications. Not more, but better technology, that increases communications productivity, measured by successful delivery of messages betwen people. Replacing lots of phone calls and TV studios with websites, ema

  • The License is *very* interesting (Score:5, Informative)

    by tpgp ( 48001 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @03:34AM (#9972833) Homepage
    The AGPL [affero.org] is a GNU recognized [gnu.org] free software license.

    It's essentially a modified GPL - with a "running this software over a network constitutes distribution" clause.

    Very cool - I had no idea this was around - might be worth some Free Software developers jumping onto until GPL v3 comes out (which will have a similar clause).

    For those who have no idea what I'm going on about - read devchannel's explanation: Closing the GPL's distibution loophole [devchannel.org]
    • So, if I run modified AGPL software on an intranet site, I have to release my modifications to the entire internet? What a puzzling license...
      • So, if I run modified AGPL software on an intranet site, I have to release my modifications to the entire internet? What a puzzling license...

        According to the AGPL FAQ, no you dont: [affero.org]

        Q: How does this license treat commercial enterprise use over intranets and internal networks?
        A: Simply, if run internally to a commercial company, then the company isn't required to release source code back to the world. The license requires that if a user downloads the source they have the right to make improvements and n

      • So, if I run modified AGPL software on an intranet site, I have to release my modifications to the entire internet?

        No, you have to release your modifications to your entire intranet. Which should be no big deal. It's only when you run it on an externally-accessible network (i.e. you distribute the app) that the source-code-distribution requirement really kicks in.

    • No, it's more like: this software distributes its source code to anyone who wants it, and you are not allowed to interfere with that.
  • I predict large #s of complaints when the RNC adopts similar strategies.

  • CivicSpace (Score:4, Informative)

    by acaben ( 80896 ) * <bstanfield@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Sunday August 15, 2004 @03:43AM (#9972865)
    Also worth checking out is CivicSpace, the new incarnation of DeanSpace, currently being developed by Civic Space Labs [civicspacelabs.org]. They recently released a free (speech and beer) zipcode database [benstanfield.com], and are building in tools mimicing the "get local" aspects of the Dean campaign along with some really cool GOTV stuff.

    Everything is based on Drupal, and is very tech friendly....RSS feeds, iCal files for events, etc. It's syndication gone political and is damn impressive stuff.

    I built a few sites during the Dean campaign using the first iteration of the tools, and have watched them progress from there. It's definitely worth checking them out if you're looking to build a camapaign site for a candidate or a movement.
    • I've built 2 CivicSpace sites in the past 2 days, lol. I'm terribly disappointed with the events module, though. It seems... a little behind the (very very impressive) rest of the site.

  • Grass roots? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by InternationalCow ( 681980 ) <mauricevansteens ... IScom minus city> on Sunday August 15, 2004 @04:25AM (#9972945) Journal
    More like Astroturf if you ask me. If I understand it correctly, the software is meant to tie people together in a way suitable to a political cause, specifically to raise money by judging from the AdvoKit introduction. Reading that, I'd say this is about raising money to finance these ridiculously expensive campaigns (to us Dutch, American politics sometimes seems to revolve around money and little else...) and not about furthering democracy. Tying people together into a pre-arranged framework with the sole purpose of raising money and/or support for a particular cause is not grass-roots, it's Astroturf. Or fund raising, take your pick.

    • Re:Grass roots? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Xoro ( 201854 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @05:03AM (#9973003)

      Isn't that a perhaps obstructively cynical?

      You say: "the software is meant to tie people together in a way suitable to a political cause, specifically to raise money" -- what's wrong with forum designed to allow people who support a cause to organize themselves more efficiently?

      I spent a lot of time on a candidate blog this season, and thought it was a good experience. Moral support for activism, with a lot of discussion about what was working and what wasn't. I thought it was a very healthy experience.

      As for money, what are we supposed to do? In Holland, maybe you can just shout and everybody will hear you. Here there are 300 million people scattered across four time zones, plus AK and HI. You need mass media to get your message out. People don't contribute because they're snookered into it, they do it to help spread a message they believe in.

      • Maybe I am being cynical. I do not doubt that there are more such as you, who are truly involved and care about the content of politics. More power to you. However, when I read on AdvoKit's web site that its success is measured in the amount of money generated by using it, I get cynical feelings. Why is it not measured in terms of the number of people gotten to rally behind a cause such as equal rights for a minority (gay marriage, anyone?). I do appreciate the difficulties in reaching an audience of 300 m

        • If you're really interested, head over to www.forclark.com [forclark.com], make an account and check out the Clark blog. Since the campaign has ended, you'll mostly be picking up a conversation amongst diehards who know each other, but don't be shy. There are regular posters from Sweden, Australia and other countries, so you won't feel too out of place. We all know you can never learn about anything by seeing it through the eyes of the media, so do check it out for yourself.

          As for what politics is "about", well, no man g

    • Re:Grass roots? (Score:4, Informative)

      by bear_phillips ( 165929 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @08:30AM (#9973432) Homepage
      Where do you get that AdvoKit is a tool to make money? AdvoKit is tool to keep track of voter records and volunteers. AdvoKit can be used to find lists of voters in your area and to record results after those voters have been contacted. (ie, did they like my candididate, do they want a yard sign, do they want to volunteer, etc). It also keeps track of the volunteers so you can manage your campaign.
  • Speaking of Kerry, I just served him dinner [jeffreymorgenthaler.com]!

  • Not enough Politicians (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Trailwalker ( 648636 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @05:03AM (#9973000)
    The constitution originally called for one repersentative for every 30,000 citizens. If this had not been changed, there would be about 10,000 representatives today.

    I've watched the way elections work in states such as New Hampshire and Vermont where there are large legislatures and few voters. An aspiring politician can actually meet and talk with every voter. These states are well noted for low priced political ventures.

    There are fewer taxes voted when everyone in your district actually knows you, and can go to your door to complain.

    This also diffuses political power and makes it difficult for a small clique or boss to run the the legislature as a personal fief.

    The solution to the problem of communicating with voters is to have more politicians and smaller districts. Then the only solftware needed would be a few pairs of sneakers.
    • This also creates the problem that exists in almost all of south america. Namely, every 5 people is another political party, and absolutely (and I mean ABSOLUTELY) NOTHING is ever accomplished, because you can never get a majority to vote on any 1 issue ever.

      You think the bureaucratic morass in Washington is bad, try Venezuela, or Columbia, or Chile. Because there are so many representatives, and so many differing points of view, about the only thing that will get passed is legislation saying the sky is

      • You think the bureaucratic morass in Washington is bad, try Venezuela, or Columbia, or Chile. Because there are so many representatives, and so many differing points of view, about the only thing that will get passed is legislation saying the sky is blue... and even that would be met with substantial opposition and would maybe pass by a 55%-45% majority.

        Yet, people bemoan the fact that third parties don't get more than a token share of the vote, or that they are somehow disinfranchised through a conspir

      • Elected legislators and unelected bureaucrats are different animals. They are different parts of the government and answer to different places. The legislator answers directly to the voters and the bureaucrat answers to the elected head of the executive branch.

        If the bureaucrats are a PITA, then voters need to lean on their legislators. No bureaucrat can florish without legislated funding.

        More legislators mean more direct contact with their constituants and closer scrutiny of their votes.
        • My point was that more politicians will get less done, not more. more politicians necessarily means more bureaucrats, and, it means more points of view, smaller coalitions, and therefore, getting a majority is much more difficult, in fact I'd argue it is exponentially more difficult as the number of politicians increase, the ability to get a majority is exponentially more difficult.
    • The constitution originally called for one repersentative for every 30,000 citizens. If this had not been changed, there would be about 10,000 representatives today.

      What this points out is that republics don't scale well to this level. You either have too many representatives to make a functioning legislature (the above option), or too many citizens per representative (the option the U.S. actually tood).

      I know this is never going to happen, but I wonder if we'd be better off splitting the U.S. into sever

      • A better answer might be to get the federal government out of business that should be handled by the states.
        • Well, if you want to completely ignore the point about increasingly unwieldy district sizes causing poor representation, and the conflicting values from one region to another about what "should be handled by the states"... then you've hit upon a brilliant idea that's gotten nowhere in 150 years.

          • Re:Not enough Politicians (Score:4, Insightful)

            by TykeClone ( 668449 ) <TykeClone@gmail.com> on Sunday August 15, 2004 @02:57PM (#9975473) Homepage Journal
            When the federal government starts getting into road and school issues - truly local things - then they're out of their area. If these kinds of things are limited to state and local governments (as intended by the framers of the Constitution) then we wouldn't need to worry about federal district sizes - the federal government should really not make much difference in a citezen's day to day life.

            The problem that we have is a bunch of elected officials (in city, state, or federal government) that need to be doing something - and doing something is often worse than doing nothing.

      • I know this is never going to happen

        Even better would be a consolidation of states. Put all of New England into one state. Lump the empty western states together. etc.

        I would really enjoy the debate this would cause, if it were tried.

        My favorite political fantasy would be to move the seat of government away from Washington, D.C. to some desolate, more central place, such as the Great Basin in Wyoming. It would do wonders for the local economy and population, both of which are practically non-exista

  • forclark.com (Score:3, Informative)

    by OoSync ( 444928 ) <wellsed@nOSpaM.gmail.com> on Sunday August 15, 2004 @05:03AM (#9973001)
    Its still active and of the major campaign blogs it kicked major ass. It allowed all registered users to have their own blog, which became a very useful feature for individuals to post and retain community information.

    It also didn't moderate (except for particularly egregious postings) by removal of posts. It used the moderation system from kuro5hin.org (and was based on scoop), which let the users moderate posts up and down. It worked pretty well, and the community kept a pretty fair hand in moderating.

    When the Clark campaign was in full gear, it was the best of the major campaign blogs, by far. There was and is no comparison. And it formed a nice community that is still actively discussing things today.
    • I have heard enhancements and updated code are also in the works. This will also be released with the GPL when ready.
      Though in reality, a small percentage of voters use blogs like this, the power is in the feeling of community as well as the deconstruction and analysis of the spin that passes for US news and there is no better source for links to interesting sites. Even a few hundred eyes scanning the net for cool political content are more effective than one person surfing their own local media and bookmar
      • The first re-release of code under the GPL was Jan 4th 2004.

        The heavy modification of Scoop code was released under the name "Bloop" on the site.

        This was just one of (iirc) some NINE projects underway.

        At least 4 were released as publicly available modules. Others were floating around under testing and betas.

        Sadly, the media ignored and left unchallanged lies about Clark and his campaign. We'll never know how far he -- the first major candidate to ever CONTRIBUTE to OS -- could have gone.

        (btw -- the se

  • The advocacydev wiki linked to in this article has been vandalised, and several links have been redirected to goatse.cx.

    So be careful if you are browsing from work.

    I could not find an easy way to roll back the changes.

    64-40-63-15.nocharge.com seems to be the vandal. Go to Revision 21 [blueoxen.net] if you want the non-vandalised site.

    • > I could not find an easy way to roll back the changes.
      I've replaced the goatse links with the links from revision 21 (hoping that those were correct). That was revision 24, and now somebody made revision 25, in which another link was corrected.
      AdvocayPlatforms [blueoxen.net] should be safe for visting now.
  • "Software for the Grass Roots"

    I nominate Windows XP. Ya'all seen the default wallpaper that comes with it, right?
  • With the publicized loss of Democratic congressional data from a few months ago, I hope some encryption technology is included in this.

    PGP was pretty grass-roots when it came out; I wouldn't be surprised if it would be discussed at least once?

  • If there's software for grass roots, does that make my lawn a Beowulf cluster ?

  • hoping to kick-start the campaign software revolution in time for November 2nd."

    Hah, we in NJ already have a place our politicians can meet, it's called alt.com [alt.com]

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